These
are examples of various types of Bump Mapping.
ATI's Pixel Tapestry will accelerate all of these
methods.
Each
method has its own place and functionality.
Environmental for reflections, Dot Product for
texture and emboss for contouring effects.
The Priority
Buffer is used to cast shadows for multiple
objects in a scene, in order of closeness to their
light source. In addition you can also achieve
other effects like "Self Shadows" where a
character's arm, for example, will cast a shadow
against its body.
This
will be big - 3D Textures
Finally,
3D Textures are a great new addition and are
just what you may think they are from their
name. 3D Textures add another dimension to 2D
textures which are used to "wrap" around
an object or character, adding substance to flat
polygons. 3D Textures have the dimension of
"volume" as well. An example of this
would be if you chipped off a piece of marble wall
and exposed the material under the surface as well
as the surface texture. Think also about a character
getting wounded. The imagery could almost be
sickening... The third "volume
dimension" would be require an update of the 2D
Texture to cover the new surface area exposed.
The 3D texture does not require this update, as it
has another surface area below the top
surface. You can chip or cut away from an
object freely with out additional operations.
Final
Important Details and A Wrap-Up
There
are a few things that also should be noted and
struck us as very interesting with respect to this
new technology announced by ATI. First, here
is a Feature Support chart of the ATI Charisma
Engine versus the NVidia GeForce.
Source:
ATI Technologies
Update
3/9/00
The
NVIDIA GeForce does indeed support Range Based Fog
and Shadow Mapping
This clearly looks like, at least on paper, ATI is
about to break out of the pack. Also here are
a few additional notables.
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